Buddy's new mom called yesterday to ask me to dogsit while she was out of town for a couple of days.  I thought it was an excellent idea and so did Bob, as it turned out. 

Bob and Buddy had become good friends in the short time he had lived with us but I had not appreciated how much Bob liked Buddy until he came back.  They were inseparable for two days and, after Buddy left, Bob wandered around the house calling for him. 

The most fun rides are the ones where you really push the envelope.  I suppose the "most" fun would be not crashing, but unless you wreck, you don't know if you could have pushed it a little further and had a little more fun. 

Sally @mtnbikemom, Guy @dig4fire and I rode the Motorcycle Trails down Crafton Hills today.  It was cold when we left the house at 8:30 but we figured it would warm up as the sun asserted itself so I didn't take any extra clothes.  It was warm enough as we climbed up the wash trails but when we began the ascent up Escalator, we found misty cloud cover. 

As rigorous as the climb was, our feet and hands were cold by the time we reached the top.  We were loath to stop to put more clothes on, and lose our body heat, but the descent promised to be even colder, what with the wind chill and less intense effort.  Sally loaned me some extra arm covers but I was still cold as we coasted down the fire road. 

We were all grateful when we reached the first uphill section of the single track that follows the ridge line, known as the Motorcycle Trails.  Because it follows the contours of the hill, it swoops steeply up a ridge and then just as abruptly down the opposite side, with the overall travel being downhill.  The object is to gather so much speed on the descent as to have enough momentum to carry you part of the way up the next ascent.  Bear in mind, this is a narrow, rutted trail with occasional bushes encroaching at face level. 

Because Sally and I have ridden this trail three or four times this winter, we were feeling fairly confident (or cocky might be more accurate) and let ourselves push the envelope just a bit.  I was in the lead which allowed me to set the pace.  I released the Intense and it bolted down the ridge and swept up the next hill.  I downshifted furiously as I lost momentum, pedaling as hard as my exhausted legs and frozen feet could go.  But...I ran out of speed before I could click through the gears to one that was low enough to turn over on the steep hill.  Still refusing to believe that I was not going to make it, I continued to try to turn the cranks even as the bike came to a dead stop.  I toppled over like a felled tree, onto the low side of the hard packed trail.  Elbow, hip, knee, each took their hit in turn, and then, to add insult to injury, my beloved Intense toppled on top of me.

I was still trying to extricate myself from the bike, which was uphill from my body, when Sally caught up with me.  Guy was not far behind and gallantly lifted my bike and helped me to my feet.  All the bumped parts were hurting mightily but by the time I had walked to the crest of the hill, I'd regained my composure. 

We continued our joyous descent with no damage to our confidence or our bikes. 

Buddy went to his new home today ~sigh~.  The house seems dreadfully quiet without his hilarious antics.  Big Bob misses him almost as much as I do, maybe more.

This picture was taken after they had played until Bob was tuckered out.

I had taken Buddy with me to a baby shower last Saturday, because Mom and Mike were putting pressure on me to find him a home.  They felt he was too much trouble, so I didn't want to leave him in their care while I was gone.  I met a woman there who took an instant liking to him, and I to her.  When we were introduced, she extended her hand, and when I shook it, felt an instant camaraderie.  Her hands were as rough and calloused as my own.

I learned that she lived on a farm in a nearby mountain community known for its apples.  Yes, Janet, you know I mean Oak Glen.  Her dog had died two years ago and now she was actively looking for that perfect companion dog.  Buddy charmed her with his friendly personality and his super cute face.

So, today I drove up to check out her place.  I had resolved that if she could provide him with a BETTER home than mine, I would leave him in her care.  As I drove up the winding road, through small, family run orchards, nestled between towering mountains, I decided that if this woman would adopt me too, I would gladly stay.  I pulled off the road at the sign advertising her farm, where I found a young man and woman, accompanied by  two dogs and a pig, pruning trees.  They pointed the way to Sharon's log cabin, up a dirt road, on the other side of a small stream. 

I knocked on the door and Sharon welcomed us into her spotlessly clean house, with wall to wall carpet in every visible room, including the kitchen.  Knowing Buddy's preference for my rugs as pee pads, I suggested we go for a walk around the farm.  I warned her that, though he hadn't had an accident in the house for about a week, it was imperative that one remember to take him outside, and tell him to pee, every couple of hours.  He hasn't learned to express his need for a potty break yet, but he does go on command.

By the time we had toured the farm, introduced Buddy to the chickens and pot bellied pigs, met Sharon's husband, and chatted up the kids pruning trees in the front orchard, I had decided that this was possibly the ideal home for him.  We went back inside the house and chatted while Buddy explored every nook and cranny.  When it was time to leave, Sharon went into another room and called him to her; he ran to her happily.  I quietly slipped out the front door.

As if nine cats weren't enough, I've taken possession of a little dog too.  He was found abandoned in a nearby mountain community.  Witnesses say someone tossed him out of a car.  His little pads are a bit torn, perhaps from the landing, but otherwise he's unhurt.

Can anyone explain to me under what circumstances one would think abandoning a little dog, or any domestic animal, was okay? 

This guy is just about as sweet as a dog can be.  He's respectful of the cats.  Of course, he hasn't much choice as most of the cats are bigger than he is.  He's smart, obedient, and eager to learn anything I teach him.  He has already learned to sit and stay, and he walks off leash at my heel without being told.  It seems nobody has ever tried to teach him not to potty in the house but we have made good progress in that department too.

Once he's housebroken, I hope to find a good home for him, if I can bear to part with him by then.  He grows dearer to me every day.  There's something heartwarming about coming home to his happy face.

Sometimes animals just seem to name themselves and other times they just get descriptions that become names (like Gray Kitty and Other Gray Kitty).  But I haven't yet thought of the right name for this little guy.  Mom calls him Shadow because he follows me like a shadow when I'm out in the yard.  I think he needs something more. 

When the weather permits, which is most of the time, and time allows, I ride my bike to work.  It's a pleasant 2.5 miles that includes a mile or so of stiff climbing.  By the time I reach the barn, I'm all warmed up and ready to work.

Today was such a picture perfect day I thought I'd take y'all along. 

I have to cross Highway 38, which is generally busy and there's no signal, so I just have to pick my way through traffic.  Then I have to pass the high school, which presents its own dangers if the students are on the road.  But then as I get out of town, into the orange groves, I can relax. 

The real estate boom gave birth to several modern mansions along my route.  They sit safely sequestered behind their ornate gates, and signs that warn of security camera surveillance.  One had a motorhome bigger than my house (and probably cost twice as much), parked in the driveway.  I guess it's kind of scary to have so much that you have to sequester yourself behind locked gates.

When the economy tanked, many of these houses were still under construction.  They remain unfinished.  This one has been for sale for a long time.

This house sits right next door, and it too, stands empty.  It was probably purchased for the land on which it sits, to be developed into another luxury estate.

There are still groves around some of the new houses, and beautiful landscaping too.

These quiet, narrow, grove roads are popular with walkers, joggers, and other cyclists.

There are some remnants of the old cut stone and clay pipe irrigation systems which have long been replaced by plastic sprinklers.  The rusting smudge pots in the background were used back in the "olden" days before oil got expensive and air quality wasn't a consideration.  I remember waking up on cold winter mornings to find the entire neighborhood shrouded in gray, sooty fog.  When one would blow one's nose, the snot was tainted black.  Ah, the good old days.

The Mormon Temple gleams in the morning sun.

And finally, I reach the barn, where my beautiful steeds greet me enthusiastically.

Mike took me out for dinner tonight to celebrate my birthday (somewhat belatedly).  I was delighted to have an opportunity to use the new purse that Jeri had given me for Christmas.

I'm not normally one to think much about hand bags, much less brand name bags, but I was blown away by this gift. 

First, I was touched by the fact that she had remembered a casual comment that I had made during one of my visits when she was in the hospital.  Jeri was hospitalized for 34 days, during which time she was in a great deal of pain.  There were many days when I feared she wouldn't survive.  Her daughter, Leigh, was at her bedside nearly every waking hour with only a few hours of relief when I would take her place.  At some point, the nurses admired Leigh's nice Coach bag, which made me conscious of how bad mine looked, which prompted my observation of the condition of my own bag.  It was under these troubled circumstances that these thoughtful women noted the comment that I had forgotten as soon as it passed my lips.

And then I was stunned by her generosity.  Coach bags are lovely, well-made hand bags, priced well beyond my limited means.  In fact, I'm almost afraid to carry it in public for fear of being mugged just for my bag!  Just to be sure that the envy factor is exploited to the maximum, Coach adorns its bags with, not one, but TWO identifying tags,

and that's in addition to the chrome Coach logo, prominently placed on the outside of the bag.

The inside is as lovely as the outside, lined and pocketed in red satin.

So, now this country bumpkin has a stylish bag and no place to go to show it off.  It hangs in my closet, in its own white satin bag, also stamped with the ubiquitous logo.  And, as silly as it sounds, I take great pleasure in owning something that other women covet. 

Bob came home from the hospital yesterday with a bag full of prescriptions, supplements, and hydration.  He has Chronic Renal Failure (CRF) and will need daily injections of sub dermal hydration.  With careful management we may be able to extend his life for several months.

As distasteful as the task was, we were determined that we could learn to inject the fluid into his back.  Mike hung the bag of fluid over the table and assembled the IV kit.  My job was to hold Bobby in place.  As soon as I placed him on the table, he began to hiss and resist my efforts to hold him still.  The needle (#18) looked like the same size the vet used on the horses.  It's HUGE!  Mike screwed up his courage and pulled up the skin on Bob's back and shoved it in.  He opened the line and immediately discovered that water was dribbling down the side of the cat, instead of into the cat.  The needle had gone all the way through both sides of the skin he had pulled up and was wetting our shoes.  We were both so completely unnerved by this that we decided to take a break and think this through.  Bob thought this was an excellent idea.

While Bob licked his coat dry, I went online to learn how other people were dealing with administering fluids at home.  I found a page, written by a man who had mastered it.  He described all of the emotions we were going through and calmed me down by reminding me that the procedure wasn't painful to the cat and that we were giving him the gift of life and comfort.  He explained, step by step, complete with pictures, how to make the whole procedure less stressful.

Armed with this information, we tried again.  This time, I put Bob's bed on the table, set him in it, and began giving him Whisker Lickin's cat treats.  With this diversion, it was possible for Mike to slip the needle in more deftly.  Then it was simply a matter of waiting while the fluid dripped in.  It took only a minute or two, and it was finished before Bob lost interest in the treats.

I don't know if it will get easier, but if we don't want to have him euthanized, it's something we must do.  For the present, he's peein', poopin', and purrin', which is the gauge of cat quality of life.  His appetite is good and he acts quite normal. 

I realize that every living creature is dying.  But accepting that this beautiful, intelligent, otherwise healthy animal will die within a very few months, is impossible to reconcile right now.  For now he's comfortable so we will do what we can to keep him that way.  When we can't, we will grant him that final kindness. 

It was my goal to post something at least once a month, but it's hard to post an upbeat story when it's coming down so hard you feel like you need to wear a hat.  In the last few months, I've been faced with sick cats, sick horses, and sick friends.  All of these chip away at one's sense of humor. 

Life has suddenly turned very serious.  I don't mean serious as in an IRS audit; I mean life and death serious.  Serious as in a weight so heavy, a bike ride can't dispel the sense of gloom.  It's beginning to look like the free ride of my charmed existence is over.  Now life's real lessons begin. 

So far, I've learned that there are few things in life as precious as health.  I read (A Fraction of the Whole) that the chasm between the rich and the poor is minuscule compared to the one between the sick and the well.  Would anyone who has been desperately sick refute that?

I've learned that my friends are more important to happiness than anything else in my life.  When my friends are sick, I can't find happiness in anything except their small triumphs against their illness.

I've learned that having someone in my life to lean on, someone to confide my fears to when I come home, someone to pour me a glass of wine, is essential to finding equanimity.

Today, we learned that Big Bad Bob may have a terminal condition.  He's presently in the hospital for hydration and testing.  The staff at the hospital allows us to visit him and so, Mike and I took turns sitting with him this afternoon,  

We're hoping he will be able to come home Christmas Eve. 

If there is anything more glorious than Southern California fall weather, I can't remember what it is.  The fall colors here are mostly tan and brown but there are spots of vibrant color that are all the more dramatic because of their rareness.

Yesterday, Mike and I went out to Palm Desert to visit some friends.  We hung out at their motorhome for the afternoon

and then went out for dinner.  

We, or more precisely "I", had a little bit too much fun and paid the price with a slight hangover this morning.

Thank goodness, my good friend, Sally @mtnbikemom, was willing to take me out on a good hard bike ride to sweat out the toxins.  We rode "The Oaks" which is a network of trails on the south side of Redlands.  From here, it entails a few miles of gentle road riding, which was just perfect for one who was feeling under the weather. 

The Oaks starts off with a sketchy, twisty, rutty, brushy, downhill singletrack, with ball bearing traction, that quickly wakes you up from the ho hum road ride warm up.  The trail climbs and descends a couple of moderate hills before swooping down a ridge to a sandy wash.  Then comes Heartbreak, a climb so named because of its nearly relentless steepness. 

If your heart can take the climb, you're rewarded with another roller coaster ride down the next ridge.  All those short ascents start to add up and by the time you hit the road for home, you're happy to see pavement again.

Happy days are here again!  One of my favorite trails off Crafton Hills, Roller Coaster, is open again (all except for one very short section) AND some intrepid trail builder has created a new trail towards the end of the descent, providing another exiting climax to this super fun trail. 

Sally @MtnBikeMom and I had noted the trail where it dropped off the hill onto the highway, a couple of weeks ago but kind of dismissed it because it looked WAY too steep to be rideable.  But this week, after a gentle rain had softened up the soil and created sticky traction, we viewed it a little more optimistically.  Pushing our bikes up from the bottom we did some reconnaissance to see exactly what it looked like from the top.  We left our bikes beside the trail, a couple of hundred yards up where it got really steep, and hiked the rest of the way to where it intersected the known main trail. 

There were two particulary scary looking switchbacks that required one to turn sharply downhill and literally slide for a few yards before reaching a less steep section where one could regain speed control, but I decided that one of them could be avoided by simply angling off the side of the trail and turning straight down the ridge at a less acute angle, before reaching that turn in the trail.  Sally swore it was not anything she would try but wasn't opposed to walking the scary steep sections.  We decided that we would ride down the section we had pushed the bikes up to test the traction and determine if the steeper section was a possibility.  We had no difficulty on the lower section.

We proceeded up Escalator

and then up Judy's to the very beginning of Roller Coaster.  The first section isn't terribly steep but it sometimes has some deep ruts that make it interesting, and where it drops onto the fire road, there's an attention grabbing drop off of about 10 or 15 feet.  This time of year, the ruts have been smoothed by summer traffic and not yet honed by winter's storms, and with the superlative traction, it was just fast and fun. 

The second section is an old cow path that's been eroded into a knee-deep rut.  If you remember to look far enough ahead, it's wide enough to ride in, but some places are so overgrown that you can't see the next turn until you're in it.  From there the trail follows a more gentle slope down the ridge, being intersected several times by the store-bought trail built by the Crafton Hills Open Space Conservancy.  (You may remember me railing against the trail builders who thought they were going to discourage use of the original cow path by piling brush and rocks at each intersection on this trail and on Yikes!.)

Roller Coaster parts company with the conservancy trail for good at a saddle between two hills to become the E ticket ride of its moniker.  It's deceptively benign at first, rolling up a gentle hill and then down a chaparral lined path to a short steep rise. 

Topping the rise, the trail momentarily disappears as it drops so steeply down that one can't see over the edge for just a split second. 

Once committed to the descent, there's only one option; hang on, control your speed as much as you can, while looking as far down the hill as possible to plan your line.  There's usually a rut that meanders most of the length of the two hundred yard descent which adds a bit of interest to an already white knuckle ride.  Despite the sticky traction, we were skidding both wheels and still picking up speed for most of the descent. 

There's a short section of relatively flat trail after that which allows your heart rate to come back to normal and then things get technical. 

Another steep, but shorter plummet, leads into a rock-strewn, rutted gully that degenerates into stair steps of broken granite. 

Its redeeming grace is the fact that it's not so steep that you can't control your speed, but steep enough that you can roll over almost anything without danger of going over the bars.

We gave a giggle of relief and proceeded to the top of the new trail that we had inspected on the way up.  At this point I have to back up a bit. 

We had stopped earlier to lower our seats so that we could easily shift our weight over the rear wheel to compensate for the steepness of the trail.  A well-built, young man overtook us, while we were stopped, and asked Sally if we were okay.  His look said that he thought we MUST be lost as this was no trail for old women.  He was wearing a full-face downhill helmet and looked like he knew what he was doing.  We let him go on ahead as we were still adjusting our seat height. 

By the time we reached the place where we had to drop onto the new trail, we were feeling pretty confident.  I was in the lead and had no trouble controlling my speed even though there were some steep sections and some interesting turns.  I came to the first of the two intimidating switchbacks and clipped out of my pedals.  I could see the skid marks of the other rider's tires but just didn't have the nerve to ride down this steep chute.  Sally stopped behind me and looked it over.  She observed that it wasn't any steeper than the parts we had just ridden and deemed it rideable.  Since I was already off the bike and doubted that I could get clipped into my pedals before the turn, I walked.  Sally made a stab at her pedals and rode it handily even though she never got clipped in on one side.

I mounted just below the turn and snapped into my pedals just in time to make the next turn off the side, straight down the face of the hill.  For a few yards it was bumpy and grass covered and then it got steep.  Sliding, more or less in control, I gathered speed, found a short space to regain control and then plunged down the next lock-em-up slider.  Out of the corner of my eye, I caught a glimpse of the other rider's red jacket.  He was walking his bike down the second switchback.  Our path intersected his and I hoped he didn't come flying down and hit Sally, who was behind me, because there was no way we could stop.  My concern was needless as Sally and I beat him to the highway by a half a minute.

We giggled all the way home over how we old ladies had blown the doors off the cute, young downhiller.